Why You Should Consider Professional Lawn Care

By hiring a landscape contractor to provide professional lawn care services, you can stop worrying about lawn maintenance and know that your property will look great year-round.

Five Important Factors to Consider

1. Your Time

If you’re doing your own yard work, you realize that it’s a tedious, time-consuming job. Even minimal lawn care, like mowing the grass on a weekend, can interrupt important family time and personal commitments. If your job requires a heavy, weekly work schedule with long hours, the thought of spending every Saturday or Sunday doing yard work probably isn’t very appealing. It’s important to consider your daily schedule and how much free time you have to devote to lawn maintenance. Using a professional lawn care service will give you more free time to devote to family, friends and things you really enjoy.

2. Quality Care

Basic lawn care is time-consuming and labor intensive, but quality lawn care requires a different level of skill and commitment to keep your yard healthy and well-maintained. It requires knowledge and experience to understand different soil types, plant growth patterns, proper pruning schedules and choosing the right lawn care products that are best for your property.

Many professional landscape contractors have education and experience in horticulture, so their plant and landscape knowledge is quite diverse. Professional lawn care providers also have proper equipment and a sufficient crew to tackle even the most difficult landscape projects with ease.

3. Maintenance Costs

Regular landscape maintenance brings up the age-old question, “which is more important, your time or your money?” Although hiring a professional lawn service will cost more than DIY efforts, it might be well worth the extra money. Simply mowing the lawn can take hours, especially if you have a large property to maintain.

However, a well-maintained property usually doesn’t involve only mowing the lawn. It also includes trimming trees, shrubs and hedges; removing weeds, leaves and dead growth; planting new seasonal flowers and plants and watering and fertilizing the entire property. When you weigh the costs of professional lawn care against all of these DIY maintenance chores, the costs may seem quite reasonable.

4. Equipment Costs

In addition to your time and labor, DIY lawn care for your Bergen County, NJ home will require an investment in necessary equipment, lawn care products and knowledge. It’s important to weigh these additional costs against professional lawn care costs. Take a look at some basic equipment you’ll need:

Lawn Mower: You’ll need to invest in a good lawn mower, either gas or electric, that can handle the size and requirements of your property. If you have a large property, you may want to look at a riding lawn mower. A more expensive mower with an attached bag for grass clippings is best. You must consider your property’s terrain, layout and grass type to determine adequate power for a mower.

Leaf Blower: Unless you want to rake up all of the leaves in your yard each week, you’ll need to invest in a good leaf blower. It’s important to buy one with enough power and size to adequately handle your lawn needs. And one more important thing, unless you want to damage your hearing, invest in a good set of ear plugs to silence the deafening noise of leaf blowers!

Spreader: To apply necessary nutrients, fertilizer and lawn seed, you’ll need to buy a quality broadcast wide-type spreader that will apply these lawn care products in an even, consistent amount. Depending on the size of your property, you may need to buy a larger spreader that you can attach to your riding lawn mower.

Lawn Tools: To compete with professional lawn care, you’ll need to invest in a variety of lawn tools to take care of your property on a regular basis. You will need a good quality rake, shovel, hoe, hole digger, grass edger, hedge clippers, tree and shrub trimmers, pruners, a wheel barrow, a sturdy ladder, several buckets and strong, durable yard gloves.

5. Product Costs

Fertilizer: Very few soils are fertile enough to supply adequate nutrients for a healthy lawn and plants. The soil in most areas of Northern NJ is depleted of most proper nutrients to keep your lawn green and healthy, so fertilizers and other additives must be added. Your lawn will require regular feedings, so you’ll need to spend some time educating yourself on the types of lawn food and the proper time to fertilize your lawn and plants.

Mulch: You will need to invest in mulch for your landscape to maintain moisture and prevent weeds. You can use less water and improve the health of your trees and plants by using a layer of mulch, but you’ll need to learn about the different varieties of mulch available and determine which is best for your landscape. Instead of having your “yard waste” hauled away, you can create your own mulch from fallen leaves and other plant matter, but then you’ll need to invest in a good compost container.

Pesticides: There’s a long list of weed killers and pesticides on the market, but how much do you really know about pesticides? Many contain harmful or toxic chemicals that pose significant danger to children and pets when inhaled or ingested. Unless you’re prepared to study up on a complex variety of pesticides, it’s much more advantageous to pay for professional lawn care and deal with experts who are knowledgeable about dangerous pesticides. Many landscape contractors in Bergen County, NJ also offer organic lawn care services.